


the long arm of the law

by rain_sleet_snow



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Affection, Crushes, Cuddling & Snuggling, During Canon, Original Trilogy as Politics, Pining, Planet Tatooine (Star Wars), Traditions, Tusken Raiders (Star Wars), space western
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:53:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28075764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: Cobb hosts the Mandalorian for the night, after the krayt dragon is dead.
Relationships: Baby Yoda (The Mandalorian TV) & Din Djarin, Din Djarin/Cobb Vanth
Comments: 32
Kudos: 283





	the long arm of the law

**Author's Note:**

> am I ashamed of myself for that joke of a title? I am not.

Cobb was more fascinated than he should be by the stranger; fascinated in a way that reminded him of his dumbest childhood escapades, and the way his mother used to take his face between her hands and tell him he'd come to a sticky end. He never could stay away from the kind of prize most likely to kill him messily.

That kind of an end was still and always on the table for the Marshal of Mos Pelgo, but he didn't think the stranger was likely to kill him. Not at this juncture. It was counterintuitive for a man who went around wearing half Tatooine's GDP on his back (Cobb had had to sit down when he'd looked up the cost of beskar), and who'd blown up a krayt dragon with an entire bantha's worth of explosives, but the Mandalorian was a man of peace. You could tell by the way he talked to the Tuskens and the villagers, the way he negotiated, the gentleness with which he treated the child he carried with him. There were not a lot of men of peace on Tatooine, but Cobb still knew one when he saw one. He felt almost sorry, knowing the stranger a little better and knowing a little more of what Mandalorian armour meant, that he'd ever worn that chestplate and helmet; and yet not sorry enough to regret it.

The kids had clustered round the stranger as soon as they were sure he wasn't dangerous, and seeing his awkward, laconic kindness, Cobb thought he understood. And when Cobb had said to him, "I just fear one day that old dragon is gonna realise the school is easy meat," the slight stillness and pause, followed by a heavy nod, told Cobb the stranger did understand. And maybe the stranger didn't regret that Cobb had worn the armour too, much as he would never leave it behind. 

Hell, maybe he knew who'd worn it. Cobb had never left the Mos continent his whole life long, and he'd never heard a whisper of a Mandalorian on Tatooine, not even in Mos Eisley. But maybe the stranger knew the armour by the patterns, by the paint. 

He'd leave in the morning and take it with him, anyway. And maybe then Cobb's mouth would stop going dry at inconvenient intervals, as the stranger's armour gleamed under the light of the glowing suns.

The Tuskens had their party; the townsfolk had theirs. Everyone parted amicably, which was as much as Cobb had hoped for, and he agreed a meeting in a week's time with one of their leaders, who spoke Basic just fine. It figured.

Cobb made an effort with the Tusken sign language anyway. Somebody had to.

The townsfolk partied late and hard; children clustered around the little green baby, adults pretending not to be fascinated by the stranger. Cobb stuck fairly close by him as the festivities went on into the night, telling himself that he just wanted to make sure the man didn't get overwhelmed. He never saw him eat or drink, not until the party was over and Cobb was kicking the fire apart and supervising the clean-up, and even then Cobb only knew because when he turned back the helmet was settling onto the man's head and the drink and food that had been left for him were diminished. 

"You're real serious about that helmet, aren't you," Cobb said. 

"I'm a Mandalorian," the stranger replied, seated halfway into the shadows with the last dying light of the fire and the solar lanterns playing over his armour, his child asleep in the crook of his arm, and somehow, that hit Cobb where he lived.

He stopped, and met the stranger's eyes. "You must've been pretty shocked when I took that helmet off."

A beat of deliberate silence. "I knew you weren't a Mandalorian. I'll say that much."

Cobb flushed, painfully, from the back of his neck upwards. "Well, if you ever meet the original owner, be sure and tell him the insult wasn't intentional."

"There was no insult," the stranger said. "You didn't know." Another beat. "You used it well." 

_Cobb Vanth_ , he thought to himself, _you are a Grade-A sucker with a hard-on for a pretty face you can't even see, and even your sweetest sister would call you a fool right now._

"Sure appreciate the testimonial," Cobb said, and turned away to finish clearing up.

The stranger seemed inclined to go back to his ship to sleep, but some of the girls hustled him along back to Cobb's house, where the old solar heaters had been turned on against the cold desert night and a second bed had been made up and a cot set out for the baby. Cobb came along a moment later, kind of wondering if someone was going to offer the stranger a bed warmed by something other than good blankets, but he found the stranger alone, standing awkwardly in his small house.

"I'd offer to put the kettle on," Cobb said, trying to be matter-of-fact, "but caf just keeps me up all night." The stranger was still holding the sleeping baby; Cobb nodded to the other side of the living room, where someone had placed the second bed and the cot. "He looks tired, you can let him sleep there."

The stranger looked across, and after a long moment nodded; Cobb saw him lay the baby down very gently, tucking him into blankets, and went back to closing up doors and shutters, locking them against the night. When he was done, the stranger was done, and standing there awkwardly. 

"Fancy a drink?" Cobb said, heart beating hard in his throat. "It's been a long day."

"I can't take my helmet off," the stranger reminded him.

"But I could get you a straw," Cobb pointed out. "We could sit in the other room, so as to let the kid sleep."

A beat of silence. The stranger let no hasty sentence be spoken, Cobb had noticed. "That would be very kind," he said at last.

"Just ordinary hospitality, my friend," Cobb said, trying not to let relief into his voice. "And between friends, what do I call you?"

"Between friends," the stranger repeated, and there was another pause that stretched for days. "Din," he said at the end of it. "You can call me Din."

"Din," Cobb said, and saw Din nod, a minute gesture. "Well. Glad you rolled into town, Din."

He stepped aside, and took down the bottle of Corellian brandy he'd claimed from the belongings of the Mining Collective's head thug, and two glasses. And, after a second's thought, a straw. 

He wasn't even sure why the hell he owned a fucking straw, but he figured it wasn't worth worrying about, with Din standing in his bedroom looking at the shitty holos on the walls and the hanging Miz Alu had made him, when she'd realised he'd set up home with essentially nothing to call his own. It was inspired by the suns setting, allegedly. Cobb called it artistic.

"Your family?" Din asked, as Cobb poured two glasses and handed him the one with the straw in.

"Yeah," Cobb said, glancing at the wavering, blue-tinged images. He didn't like to turn them off. He was never sure they would turn back on again. "My Ma and Pa, they were both miners. Well, he was a miner, she was an assayer. They passed a while back. My sister Imo, she lives on the Dras continent, with her wife and their boys. My sister Lally, she's a lawyer for the new government if it ever gets off the ground, don't got a family of her own. My sister Effy, she passed a few years ago. Reckon that princess who killed Jabba the Hutt never figured on the mess that'd be left behind. Effy got unlucky, I guess. Riots."

"A princess killed Jabba the Hutt?" Don's full attention was back on him again. "I heard it was the Rebellion."

"You ain't never heard the story?" Din shook his head, and Cobb shook his head in answer and sat down on the bed, unlacing his boots one by one. There was nowhere else to sit in here, he told himself. "Well, it was a good few years back. Maybe the year before the second Death Star. Jabba caught himself a princess to be his toy. Some say she was trying to rescue her lover, but I say you'd gotta be very brave or very foolish to try rescuing someone from Jabba, and he wasn't so dumb as to keep someone that brave or foolish alive. No, I say he caught her. And he kept her around as his little doll, and the second she got the chance, she wrapped her chains across his neck and she strangled him dead."

"A romantic story," Din observed. “If she rescued her lover.”

"Very specialised notion of romantic you got there," Cobb said, and waved a hand at the bed. "Take a seat."

Din sat down, gingerly.

"Course, I don't think she made a mess on purpose," Cobb continued, staring down into his glass. "Ain't nobody can blame a girl for wanting to get free, and I heard she went back for all of Jabba's dancing girls, got them off Tatooine entirely. Ain't nobody can't see the victory in that."

"It was well done," Din offered, "if it was true."

"Brave," Cobb said. "Or foolish."

Din's head tilted sideways. "Sometimes there's not that much difference between the two."

Cobb snorted. "You're telling me," he said, and looked away as Din tilted his helmet back, enough so he could use the straw, though his vision might be compromised. Cobb could see the shadow of his chin, maybe. If he looked. "What would you call that stunt you pulled with the krayt dragon?"

"Necessary," said Din. A short laugh broke from Cobb's chest.

"I thought you were done for," he said, and then nothing else for a good while. The quilt Mister Loic's kids had made up was less artistic than the hanging, chiefly because Mister Loic had an eye for colour and he'd supervised the piecing, and it was soft under Cobb's hand as he ran his fingers over the pattern and didn't think about Din in his bed.

"You know," Cobb said after a while, the brandy doing the talking, "when you told me to take the armour off or you'd take it off me, I didn't initially realise you meant a fight."

A small, surprised pause. And then:

"I definitely don't do _that_ in front of the kid," Din said, audibly taken aback. 

"Yeah," Cobb said, embarrassed for himself both now and then. "But I'm just saying. I wouldn't have minded."

"I don't remove my armour," Din said, gently enough that it wasn't a rejection.

"You know," Cobb said, "I don't mind that, either." Weird, but true. He shook his head. "C'mere, Mandalorian. It's been a long day, and you don't have to sleep on that second bed. If it's the one I'm thinking of it's just about made of pointy springs anyway. Rest your head a while; I'm not asking you for more. Maybe as it'll do you as much good as it would me."

"A kind offer," Din said, setting aside his glass, and Cobb's heart thudded hard. "One I'm minded to accept."

"You got a way with words, Din," Cobb said, voice catching on a laugh. The beskar was not comfortable to lean against, but with a pillow under his head he could throw his arm across Din's chest and sleep easily like he hadn't since before the Mining Collective rolled in, before the krayt dragon rose from beneath the sands, before Effy died, before, before, before. Din kept the helmet on, but he twisted his seat so Cobb could lie across him more comfortably, and Cobb could feel him trailing light gloved fingertips over Cobb's shoulder and arm, and he knew the ghost of that touch would haunt all his best dreams.

_You're pathetic, Cobb Vanth_ , he told himself, and sunk himself into remembering the way Din turned into him like cool shadow in the heat of the day, like water in the desert, like refuge in the darkness. Maybe this didn't all have to go one way.

Cobb packed the orphaned armour up for Din in the morning.

"Guess I won't be seeing you or little mister green again," he said, eyes fixed resolutely on the horizon. "But if you're ever passing by this way, Mandalorian, I hope you'll remember you got a welcome in Mos Pelgo."

"I'm glad I met you," Din said. "Thank you for giving up the armour."

"Ahh, if it's stolen property a Marshal shouldn't be wearing it, any road." Cobb stepped back, so as not to touch. "Travel safe, now."

"You too, Marshal." Din tipped his head to one side and studied Cobb from behind the visor, and then stepped forward and clasped his shoulder, brief and warm. "Thank you for the hospitality. One day I'll hope to return the favour."

"I look forward to it," Cobb said. He cleared his throat, and nodded at the armour. "You tell your kin - it wasn't me that broke the jetpack."

"I'll tell them," Din promised, and Cobb thought - or maybe he was kidding himself - that behind the helmet, the Mandalorian smiled.

  
  
  



End file.
